Resum:

The main objective of this thesis work is to assess and map international research concerning gender in science and higher education. To do this, two different studies were designed: first, to examine the development and growth of scientific literature on women in science and higher education, and, second, to map and analyse the structure and evolution of the scientific literature on gender differences in higher education and science, focusing on factors related to differences. For the first study, development and growth of scientific literature on women in science and higher education, a total of 1415 articles and reviews published between 1991 and 2012, were extracted from the Thomson Reuters Web of Science database. For the second study, mapping the evolution of scientific literature on gender differences, the data set comprised a corpus containing 651 articles and reviews published between 1991 and 2012, extracted from the Thomson Reuters Web of Science database.
The methodology and procedures employed included standard bibliometric indicators and laws (e.g., Price’s, Lotka’s, and Bradford’s laws), Relative Intensity Index (RII) and the Gender Inequality Index (GII). Data sets in the second study were evaluated for different time periods; co- word analysis and hierarchical cluster analysis were undertaken.
The results of these studies suggest an upward trend in both the number of papers, and also the number of authors per paper. However, this increase in the number of authors was not accompanied by an increase in international collaboration. Interest in gender differences in science extends to many authors (n = 3064), countries (n = 67), and research areas (n = 86). The data showed a high dispersion of the literature with a small set of core journals focused on the topic. The research area with the highest frequency of papers was Education and Educational Research.
The results also indicated a significant increase in the number of themes over the years. Furthermore, the fact that gender differences in science and higher education have been considered by specific research disciplines, suggests important research-field-specific variations.